Adding one to two tablespoons of our Omphacium Early Harvest EVOO collection to your diet a day can have significant anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects and it tastes great too - if you really enjoy spicy and bitter tastes.
The health benefits of consuming extra virgin olive oil are unrivaled, and research reveals more benefits nearly every day. In fact, we are only just beginning to understand the countless ways pure Extra Virgin Olive oil can improve our health, and our lives.
Studies conducted around the world have proved that eating foods rich in polyphenols can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improve the health of your arteries, slow the aging process and they can even aid in fighting Alzheimer or some types of cancers.
What are polyphenols?
In a few words, polyphenols are a group of plant-based chemicals. These antioxidant rich properties can be found in a variety of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and spices. Olives are stone fruit, like peaches or plums. Pure Extra-Virgin Olive oil is fresh-squeezed fruit juice – it’s seasonal and perishable, as all fruits but, thanks to a careful milling process, it contains two main polyphenols: oleacein and oleocanthal.
The researchers, nutritional scientist Paul Breslin (Rutgers University), biologist David Foster (Hunter College) and chemist OnicaLeGendre (Hunter College) discovered in a lab study that the ingredient, called oleocanthal, causes a rupture of a part of the cancerous cell which releases enzymes and causes cell death, without harming healthy cells. In this way, cancer cells are killed by their own enzymes.
“Oleocanthal is a name for a chemical in extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) that means ‘Stinging Oil Aldehyde’,” Paul Breslin told Olive Oil Times. “It is made by the olive when it is crushed to make the pulp from which the oil is pressed.”
“There are many compounds in EVOO that have a 6-carbon ring structure on them and collectively they are known as phenolics,” Breslin added. “These compounds are collectively good anti-oxidants preventing oxygen pore-radicals from forming and they also tend to be anti-inflammatory. Oleocanthal has been shown to interfere with processes associated with many types of inflammation, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer formation and growth.”
“All you need is to read the labels carefully…”
But you don’t want to take a sip of just any kind of olive oil you’d find at your local supermarket. In order to reap the health benefits of oleocanthal and oleacein, you have to make sure you’re consuming 100% extra virgin olive oil, instead of the cheap, undergraded olive oils. You only have to rely on that magic ingredient of oleocanthal and oleacein –the two main phenols to signal if your olive oil is truly extra virgin—it will have that bitter taste pungent and spicy burn at the back of your throat.
